Boy in the Striped Pjs
“The boy in the striped pyjamas” by John Boyne is a book about a nine year old boy called Bruno who is growing up in Berlin during World War II. He lives a very comfortable life in a large house with his parents and his sister, not forgetting the maid and the cook. But this all changes very soon when his father who is a very high-ranking soldier is promoted to “Commandant” and to Bruno’s sadness the family have to move to a place which Bruno refers to as out-with. Bruno immediately becomes very homesick for many reasons.
He misses his grandparents, his house, his three best friends for life and of course his adventures. Bruno is a very curious boy and while looking out of his window one day he noticed that there were other people, lots of people. It isn’t long before Bruno decides to ask his father about these people but his father tells him that they are not people at all. It turns out that it is the extermination camp Auschwitz and due to Bruno’s curiosity and boredom he decides to explore and it is here at the fence that he meets and befriends a young boy called Shmuel.
Almost every day he meets Shmuel and they talk by the fence both on separate sides but they are both desperate to play with each other and conveniently Shmuel’s father goes missing and he needs Bruno’s help to find him. They make a gap in the fence just big enough for a small boy to fit through and Bruno goes into the camp with a pair of striped pyjamas and it is then that something unimaginable happens. In this essay my task is to describe how well John Boyne has involved the reader throughout his challenging novel to ensure our sympathies for Bruno.
